


exit wounds

by lovesongskillme



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 02:57:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12596596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesongskillme/pseuds/lovesongskillme
Summary: Sometimes Jinyoung wished he could have turned back time.





	exit wounds

**Author's Note:**

> it was inspired by "tom at the farm" and placebo's songs. enjoy :)

Before Jinyoung could tread on red-hot pavement in Los Angeles, he had to spend hours in Narita Airport waiting for his embarkation on a plane to the States and forget his passport in the cafés and restrooms at least three times in a row. His head was splitting up due to jetlag and sweltering heat in the city, and all he wanted at that moment, while standing in the terminal along with other passengers, was to sleep through until the next day.

The decision to fly over to Los Angeles wasn't spontaneous: he'd carefully weighed its pros and cons prior to handing in an application for visa and buying a ticket; he'd thought over every single detail of a forthcoming conversation as if his life depended on it. He even declined Mark's parents' offer to stay at their house while he'd be in America. Two days before and after Mark's funeral weren't a big deal, and if it weren't for the circumstances that had brought them together, he probably wouldn't turn it down. Yet he didn't have a heart to accept their proposal. For all he knew Mark had never got along with his family, and whereas Jinyoung hadn't possessed enough courage to actually ask about the reasons, he hadn't questioned them either.

Before the day he had to phone the older's mother. 

Although a surprising lack of tears or grief in her voice had staggered him at first, Jinyoung opted to ignore that queasy sensation in his throat which her cheeful tone had kindled as she didn't seem as sulry or abrasive as he had imagined her to be until then. In fact, she was rather amiable and sweet. So not like Mark. 

-

When they met six years ago, Jinyoung was still a student at Yonsei University and studying economics and Mark, being slightly older, was working as an editor for some stagnant asvertising agency. The very first thing Jinyoung'd learned about Mark was that he had a deep green Plymouth Roadrunner his grandfather had won while playing cards with Vietnamese seamen back in Taipei. That fact alone didn't seem that convincing yet it somehow lured Jinyoung in as he tried to imagine someone as handsome as Mark laughing loudly and throwing cards on the table while making futile attempts to explain something in broken English to a tan, muscular sailor.

(Just after they found Mark's Plymouth three days after the accident, its charred debris was scattered here and there under the viaduct where the car had collided with a truck. Mark was lying face down a few meters away, in the middle of nowhere, his skin a color of Valium pills crashed with charcoal.)

-

They had sex in that car right after their third meeting at their friend's birthday, tearing down each other's clothes, trying to be as careful as possible for there wasn't enough space in the backseat. Mark's sweaty palms on his skin, rough leather chafing at Jinyoung's bare back. A sense of sheer lust and want came upon Jinyoung in a strong wave, everything around them, even the night sky, peeking in through the window, seemed almost illusory as if he fell into a dream.

So when they woke up the next morning, muscles sore and achy, still bundled up in the car, Jinyoung was reluctant to open his eyes.

They drove home in dead silence, Mark fumbling his one-handed attempt to fetch out his lighter. He hadn't said anything ever since they'd left the parking lot in haste, watching cars and trucks creep ahead of them. And only when jinyoung was about to step into a humid dark porch of his apartment building, he asked, "Would you like to come over on Saturday?"

"Would that be okay?"

"Yeah", Mark's lips curved into a mocking grin, a lit cigarette squeezed between his point and middle fingers, "I'll text you later."

With that he rolled up his window and set off, and soon his car dropped out of sight.

-

They started seeing each other every weekend, spending slothful Saturdays making love under the bedsheets, hands feeling all over their sweat covered bodies, their eager lips clashing with one another in a battle. Sometimes when neither of them were inclined to sex they'd just watch movies or Mark'd show him some of the things he was working on at that moment. Or they'd go for a night ride around the city, the older singing along with Vanguart.

"When I was a child", Mark said while sipping at his whiskey. They were at the bar in Incheon, "we moved to Brazil, then to Paraguay and came back to the States just after I'd entered middle school. Yet I can't remember anything in Portuguese or Spanish, but some phrases I had to learn to survive. Oi, como vai? Bem, obrigado."

-

Aside from those wee details he sometimes would throw into the flow of their infrequent conversations, Mark had never really brought a family subject up. It wasn't a taboo. He just didn't like talking about it.

So when Jinyoung found out that the older didn't get on with his parents, they were already together, living in Mark's apartment. 

"I have to leave", Mark announced while he was packing his suitcase with clean shirts.

Upon hearing "leave" Jinyoung went cold.

"Why?"

"I'm going to visit my family back in America."

"What? Has anything happened?"

"Well, it's my father's birthday on Wednesday. My sister said that he'd love to see me. I've missed three or four so far."

"Is that all?", Jinyoung asked.

"That's already too much for me, okay?", Mark snapped, zipping up the bag, "If I had a choice, I'd never go back. Even if I was on death row."

"Is it honestly that bad?"

Mark stood up and pulled the suitcase off their bed, his hands slightly trembling. His face was pale and covered with a pellicle of sweat.

Then he looked at Jinyoung, his gaze estranged.

"Here", he said, holding out a note with somebody's address and phone number jotted down on it in his sharp handwriting, "for emergencies. I'll be back in a week hopefully."

Mark heaved his suitcase, and just as he was about to step out on the landing, he turned around and waved at Jinyoung. 

"Don't miss me."

-

What really astounded Jinyoung in Mark was the impression of him he'd always given other people. Jinyoung himself had fallen under his spell straight away - back at the club, after their first ever meeting, when he noticed the older dancing to Corey Hart in his bright red shirt, strands of hair sticking to his sweaty temples and forehead. 

Howbeit the spell'd eroded soon enough for Jinyoung to see through Mark's guise and figure him out. Not completely and not in a flash, but eventually he'd learned to distinguish the real Mark from the mask he'd created to fool people around him. Though everybody, even the guy's close friend, Jackson, considered him composed and mature for some vague reason, in fact he was quite impulsive and got worked up way too easily. He could break the air-conditioner in their apartment because Jinyoung'd said something inapt or throw a laptop at Jackson's colleague, Bambam, in an obstructive fit of anger. Every now and then he'd go overboard and say stuff that'd haunt Jinyoung for days, such as "I feel like this dating thing has been awry since the very beginning" and "it's all your fucking fault" in response to the younger making a remark about plates piling up in the sink.

Moreover, Mark was rather callous when it came to others' feelings. Just after he'd died and Jinyoung'd delved into the events of the past week to find out what had led to such consequences, he realized that the only time Mark had ever said a genuine "I love you" was a day before the accident. All the times before that September morning it had been just a heap of words, devoid of any emotions, that didn't go together well.

-

(Mark had a phial full of dark purple, white and light blue pills which he kept inside of his bedside table. Usually he took them for his panic attacks and insomnia, however every once in a while when he experienced sudden outbursts of rage, he'd gulp down three or four of them at one ago in order to cool off. It often brought to their side effects showing up to which Mark didn't give a second thought at all.

He also dismissed his doctor's advice to avoid driving for a while which made Jinyoung wonder about how Mark had lived up to his late twenties and hadn't broken a bone or got into a car crash at least once with so much medicine and alcohol in his blood.)

-

Jinyoung didn't notice the moment when everything started to fall apart as he was too focused on getting grades good enough to enroll in an internship. Mark was busy as well; he came home after midnight, skipped meals, drank too much coffee and slept four hours a day without even setting an alarm. As a result, it made him more irascible and morose.

He also began to sleep around more frequently.

It's not like Jinyoung didn't know that Mark wasn't monogamous. Actually, Mark'd warned him about his inability to be in a committed relationship right after their first date at his apartment.

He said, "If you're not ready to accept it, then I don't think it'll work out." 

Still, Jinyoung, a complete fool, had assumed that he'd be able to change it sooner or later or, at least, that he'd be able to put up with Mark's flings in order to keep the older beside him (if his patience was the price).

Mark'd slip away at night and during the day to "help out" his colleagues or friends and disappear for hours, not really confiding in Jinyoung if it applied to his affairs though they never lasted long enough to consider them serious or alarming. Surprisingly, Mark always came back, and as long as he did Jinyoung didn't want to probe into the details in an effort to protect his sanity and peace though it didn't always pan out.

Sometimes Mark'd tell Jinyoung stories about his "adventures" in a deliberately carefree manner, describing a person he was seeing at that moment and purposely pointing out the features that Jinyoung was lacking. The older knew well enough which buttons to push, hardly ever missing the mark, as he was conscious that it'd cause Jinyoung to become even more miserable and desperate than he already was.

-

After Mark passed, Jinyoung continued keeping his number in his cellphone.

(He couldn't bring himself to erase it.)

There was a time he accidentally pressed the number and heard a familiar mechanic voice asking him to leave a message.

And Jinyoung did, in an undertone, with a lit cigarette squeezed between his teeth.

"Why don't we start over from the beginning?"

That was a line Mark used after their fight in São Paolo where they'd set off for just as summer break'd got under way. 

-

When they went to the restaurant which was not that far from the hotel they'd stayed in, Mark met Ismael, a thirty years old sommelier.

Afterwards Mark hardly ever spent time with Jinyoung, driving around the city in Ismael's Pontiac and coming back early in the mornings, reeking of alcohol and cigarillos.

"Asshole", Jinyoung hissed as he threw a bedside lamp at the older, "You can't even keep it in your pants while we're on holiday. What the hell is wrong with you? Is it that funny?"

Mark bent down and picked the lamp up, holding it in his right hand like a trophy. There was a peculiar smirk on his lips as if he'd rejoiced at the splash of wrath.

"Do you regret it?", he asked.

"Yes, I fucking do", the younger spat out, white with rage, "Before I met you, I'd never had any regrets, but now they're eating me away."

Then he snatched his jacket and stormed out of their room, in the dead of night, not knowing a single word in Portuguese.

Mark found him an hour later, on the corner of the street, flicking his lighter and watching cars pass through, eyes puffy, cigarette stubs scattered all over the place.

The older squated beside his hunched figure.

He gently nosed Jinyoung's shoulder and questioned in a hoarse voice as if it was another routine how-are-you or what-are-you-doing.

"Why don't we start over from the beginning?"


End file.
